DES HUGES

THOU SHALT NOTS

Hughes has created a linocut, delivered with his usual dry wit. He says that his work has been “taken from a quote from Under Milk Wood- ‘Only you can see in the blinded bedrooms, the combs and petticoats over the chairs, the jugs and basins, the glasses of teeth, Thou Shalt Not on the wall, and the yellowing, dickybird-watching pictures of the dead’ a general non-specific term that suggests a list of social and spiritual taboos that might otherwise prevent a good and virtuous life. A list so long that it is not easily written down and so is best shortened to a simple threat to obey or deal with the consequences. It is written like graffiti on an unconvincing woodgrain that seemed to printed onto every wipe-clean surface when I was growing up. It’s back to front and upside down in the hope that it might contain a dark subliminal truth”